After installing successfully to my desktop pc OpenBSD 4.9(i386) i tried to to do the same to my acer laptop.I used the same cd that i used for the desktop yet when i boot from the cd i get "Code dump" ,"Memory dump" and "Stack trace" and does not boot.

I had arch linux on the laptop,i tried to boot the obsd cd got the "Memory dump" and the other errors.I switched to ubuntu,got sick of it once again tried to install arch again but i could not make the graphical environment work cause i had to deal with errors i could not get rid,then tried to reinstall arch and i see: "Kernel panic".Afterwards Ubuntu installed normally and i still can't boot the obsd cd or usb.

First: This is great news! Why? It means that whatever the problem is, it is nothing you did.

What else we actually know, so far:

The booting problem ( OpenBSD, I can't help with Linux) has something to do with your hardware configuration on that laptop. This might be a BIOS setting, this might be Acer's unique interpretation of the ACPI standard, or this might be something else unique to that laptop's hardware configuration that the kernel cannot manage, or there might be an actual hardware problem. Of all of these, a BIOS setting or a strange implementation of ACPI are the most likely. BSDfan's suggestion of running memtest is to check for some types of hardware problems.

The problem is not isolated to the RAMDISK's unique configuration, it affects GENERIC (or GENERIC.MP, which is what would have booted by default from my live media image) as well.

I've not seen your model of laptop mentioned on the misc@ mailing list. I've seen the 5520G, which might be the same, but it was only mentioned in an unrelated bug report for OpenBSD 4.3, not in the mailing list.

Don't give up entirely just yet. Here are two things to try, in order:

Disable ACPI, and see if the kernel completes its boot. This should be considered temporary, unless that model of laptop also has APM support, because you'll need one or the other to keep from overheating -- they control the laptop fan(s). Steps shown below.

Boot into your laptop's BIOS menu, and set everythoing to factory defaults. Perhaps there is a setting there that is causing difficulties. I don't know if that laptop uses SATA or PATA for its hard disk drive, but if if uses SATA, you might try setting the mode (if possible in the BIOS menus) to IDE or "legacy" mode.

If both of those lead you nowhere, still don't give up. You can try a snapshot of -current, rather than -release, and see if the symptoms change or the problem goes away. You could also file a complete bug report with the OpenBSD Project. But you'll have to learn how. Those numbers and letters and gibberish you haven't bothered to post here, because they are confusing and difficult to manually write down and retype are very, very important. (A photograph of the console will help, if you can't connect a serial console to capture the text, and cannot manually write it all down then retype it.) All of the rest of the information required for a bug report will be needed on top of that, that are not clear from what you've posted here. Things like the architecture of OpenBSD you were booting. i386 and amd64 may run on the same hardware, but there are many differences under the covers. Here's are a few suggestions for guidance:

Please do not submit a bug report using my Live Media, it is not "vanilla" OpenBSD. It uses the GENERIC kernel, but it has a modified /etc/rc subsystem to provide filesystems in RAM for key structures that are normally read/write, including /etc itself.
Disabling ACPI on boot.

Use the RAMDISK kernel from install media rather than live media. You don't want the latter if APM is not available on that laptop, because it takes a long time to boot and you risk overheating the laptop.

Boot the kernel with the User Kernel Configurator option. At the boot> prompt, instead of waiting or pressing ENTER, type in "-c" and then press ENTER. The kernel will load, not check any hardware, put up only a few starting lines of the dmesg, and then give you a UKC> prompt.

At the first UKC> prompt, type in "disable acpi" and then press ENTER. You should get a second UKC> prompt. At that prompt, now type "enable apm" -- I'm not sure if it's enabled by default any more. If it is, this won't hurt.

At the third UKC> prompt, type in "quit" and then press ENTER. If the kernel boots, you will get to an Install, Update or Shell prompt. You can say "Yeeehah!" at that point. Drop into the shell.

Inspect your dmesg(8). Look to see if you have APM if ACPI is disabled. If so, you may safely install and run without ACPI. You can disable ACPI permanently with config(8).

Last edited by jggimi; 7th July 2011 at 01:33 AM.
Reason: added enabling APM to the "howto" just in case it isn't enabled by default any longer -- haven't checked

jggimi's contributions are often well crafted and informative, but it seems as if yours have been mostly post_count++;

Not trying to dissuade you from helping others, but if you can't contribute something to a thread it's probably better to not reply.. just saying, feel free to ignore me though.. it's just a friendly observation.

If i follow your steps in the ukc prompt,when i press "quit" the system is halted...

Then disabling ACPI will not work for you.

Quote:

... and i have to reboot to continue and then i get the same errors.

Of course, because ACPI is active once more.

Quote:

Then booted the UKC prompt,just typed quit,all devices where read by the system and I managed to see Install,Upgrade,Shell: i installed succesfully and after reboot i got the same error.

That behavior, as described, does not make a great deal of sense to me, unless there is some sort of race condition that is avoided by prompting the admin.

Quote:

Then i did the same again:booted the ukc,just typed quit: went to shell but i have no config: "sh: config: not found" :/

Did you boot the installed system, or the RAMDISK kernel once more? The config program is not available in the RAMDISK environment. It is a very reduced system, used for installation and some "offline" operations and has only limited tools.

But, config will not help you, since it appears disabling ACPI halts the system.

Did you boot the installed system, or the RAMDISK kernel once more? The config program is not available in the RAMDISK environment. It is a very reduced system, used for installation and some "offline" operations and has only limited tools.

But, config will not help you, since it appears disabling ACPI halts the system.

I booted the RAMDISK ENV again sicnce the installed system leads to the same results as the normal boot from CD.So if config is not available there's nothing else i can try i guess?I think i'll give a chance to current and then if i fail again i hope i i'll have better luck with another *BSD maybe!

edit:"unless there is some sort of race condition that is avoided by prompting the admin."

You could boot your installed system, with "-c", and quit at the UKC> prompt, and see if normal function is obtained.

Quote:

So if config is not available there's nothing else i can try i guess?I think i'll give a chance to current and then if i fail again i hope i i'll have better luck with another *BSD maybe!

You have several more options to pursue: A) If -current has the same behavior, provide a carefully constructed and complete problem report based on -current, which is always a better environment to report problems with than -release, as development occurs with -current. B) If you get normal behavior with the installed system and "-c", consider using it that way. C) If you go with option B, also conduct option A.

Quote:

edit:"unless there is some sort of race condition that is avoided by prompting the admin."

Thank you very much for all your time and replies jggimi: The "-c ,and 'quit' trick" to the installed system let me boot my system!i'll try the next days to report that problem!Thanx again!You really helped!

Until your problem is resolved, you might experment and see if the -a option and its prompts also works. if that works, you may find you prefer responding with defaults (pressing ENTER twice) easier than typing "quit". And for either amd64 or i386, the boot.conf(5) file can be used to set a boot command with either -c or -a, so you need not type one or the other at the boot> prompt.